The Federal Reserve’s Survey of Consumer Expectations foresees inflation returning to “pre-tariff” levels. As I have mentioned, the rising costs were a mere price correction and not a permanent rise in inflation. Tariffs were NEVER the root cause of inflation.
The central bank predicts that inflation will read 3% in 13 months, which would be the same level of inflation—at least by the Fed’s calculations—since Trump entered the White House. The Fed was stating that prices would rise 3.6% back in March and April when the tariffs were announced. They blamed the Smoot-Hawley Tariff for the Great Depression, just like they’re now blaming Trump’s tariffs for inflation. It’s a political narrative.
Central bank members see inflation remaining unchanged over the next three to five years at 3% and 2.6% respectively. However, members see prices increasing in food (5.5%), medical (9.3%), gas (4.2%), rent (9.1%), and college tuition (9.1%). There is a plethora of factors leading to inflation in the aforementioned categories, none of which have any relation to tariffs.
Prices have simply not returned to what they once were before the global economy came to a standstill during COVID. Every nation has been affected. The lockdowns and supply chain cracks were exacerbated by a massive increase of government spending. Then the government doubled down on green policies, causing energy prices to rise, and lit the situation ablaze amid the Ukraine war and Russian sanctions. The world was already amid a sovereign debt crisis before COVID, and in fact, the Economic Confidence Model clearly stated that the landscape would permanently change after the Big Bang target of October 1, 2015 (2015.75)—the peak in government confidence.
2015.75 was the beginning of the decline we are witnessing in sovereign bonds globally. The migrant crisis began in 2015 when former German Chancellor Angela Merkel invited Syrian refugees to Europe, leading other Build Back Better nations to follow suit in the years since. Anti-establishment sentiment was already on the rise when Trump first secured the presidency the following year in 2016.
Trump was not the cause, he was the symptom. The people lost faith in the establishment starting in 2015.75 and this is part of the global shift predicted precisely by the system. The Fed thinks inflation is a monetary issue. We are in a sovereign debt crisis, a confidence crisis, and a geopolitical storm and not a normal business cycle.
